A soft-spoken Trappist monk will raise his voice in Latin praise this Sunday at St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis as the Cape’s Latin Mass moves here from Chatham.

Plans are to celebrate the 16th century “Tridentine”-style of the sacrament every Sunday at 1 p.m.

Father Andrew Johnson was a member of the last class at his Catholic high school that was required to take Latin. He liked it then, and then “got very serious” when he lived in Rome and studied at the Gregorian University with Father Reginald Foster, “probably the best living Latin scholar.”

St. Francis Xavier Church “already has a Spanish Mass and a Portuguese Mass. Why not have a Latin Mass?” said Dan Linnell, a layperson from East Sandwich who was tapped by the Diocese of Fall River to help establish the Tridentine Mass in Hyannis.

It’s not simply a matter of language, however. Depending upon one’s theology, the priest either is facing East along with the other worshippers, or he’s turning his back on them. Similarly, depending upon one’s theology, in the new Vatican II Mass, the priest either faces the people as a sign of community or turns his back to the East, where Christ is expected to return.

“I grew up with the ‘new’ Mass,” said Linnell. “The first time I went to a (Tridentine) Mass in Boston, I cried.”

“The priest, as the representative of Christ, faces East. We’re all facing in the same direction.”

Another local Catholic had a different reaction to news of the Latin Mass. Willing to be quoted but unwilling to be named, this active churchgoer said, “I loved Latin. I took it for three years and learned a lot from it.

But when I went to a Latin Mass, it didn’t do a thing for me. I wouldn’t go again. Vatican II opened the door, and this is a step backward.”

The churchgoer believes that a different type of church has made headway into truly expressing the Cape’s devotion. “The real breath of life for the Church on the Cape is the Brazilian community. They live their faith.”

In Chatham, attendance at the Latin Mass averaged about 20-25 people weekly. Linnell hopes that the change of venue will attract more. “Hyannis is like the capital of Cape Cod, if Cape Cod were a state.”

Linnell’s nephew, Michael Bauer, will serve as altar boy on Sunday. “I was like the altar boy in Chatham,” says Linnell. “But here I’ll be able to sit with my family.” He and his wife have four young children.

The Tridentine Mass –named for the Council of Trent that set its form – is intimately associated with Gregorian chant. The Hyannis church is “working toward” providing such music for the Mass, said Johnson. Linnell added that his niece, a graduate of Ave Maria College in Florida, is willing to start the music program.

But for now, “we’ll start slow,” he said. The service initially will be celebrated as a “low Mass,” without song. “It will be simple at first.”

May anyone attend this Mass?

“Yes. Tell your friends,” said Linnell. Johnson reiterated the invitation, with a caveat: “We’d love to have everyone who would like to come, but we do restrict Holy Communion to Catholics.”

The Tridentine Mass (in Latin, with everyone facing East), and the Vatican II Mass (in local language, with the priest and the congregation facing each other), offer two distinct forms of the Roman Catholic Church’s worship.

Are the people who choose one or the other going to get along? Linnell, who has devoted so much time to the presence of the Tridentine Mass on Cape Cod, said, “We’re all in the same family, going through life. We have to work together to find a balance.”